The national debt is the total amount of money that the U.S. government has borrowed from various sources, including the governments of other nations, from private investors and different federal agencies. The government’s ability to pay off that debt is a function of our gross ...read more
The Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1966, giving the public the right to access records from any federal agency. FOIA plays an important role in keeping government transparent and accountable, and has been used to expose a ...read more
The stock market crash of 1929 – considered the worst economic event in world history – began on Thursday, October 24, 1929, with skittish investors trading a record 12.9 million shares. On October 28, dubbed “Black Monday,” the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged nearly 13 ...read more
The Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, was a U.S. economic program designed to ward off the nation’s mortgage and financial crisis, known as the Great Recession. Signed on October 3, 2008, by President George W. Bush, TARP allowed the Department of the Treasury to pump ...read more
Ruby Ridge was the location of a violent 11-day standoff in remote Boundary County, Idaho, beginning on August 21, 1992. U.S. Marshals and federal agents faced off against Randy Weaver, his wife and five children and his friend Kevin Harris. The Ruby Ridge incident was the ...read more
The Great Society was an ambitious series of policy initiatives, legislation and programs spearheaded by President Lyndon B. Johnson with the main goals of ending poverty, reducing crime, abolishing inequality and improving the environment. In May 1964, President Lyndon B. ...read more
The system of checks and balances in government was developed to ensure that no one branch of government would become too powerful. The framers of the U.S. Constitution built a system that divides power between the three branches of the U.S. government—legislative, executive and ...read more
The three branches of the U.S. government are the legislative, executive and judicial branches. According to the doctrine of separation of powers, the U.S. Constitution distributed the power of the federal government among these three branches, and built a system of checks and ...read more
The judicial branch of the U.S. government is the system of federal courts and judges that interprets laws made by the legislative branch and enforced by the executive branch. At the top of the judicial branch are the nine justices of the Supreme Court, the highest court in the ...read more
The legislative branch of the federal government, composed primarily of the U.S. Congress, is responsible for making the country’s laws. The members of the two houses of Congress—the House of Representatives and the Senate—are elected by the citizens of the United States. Powers ...read more
The executive branch is one of three primary parts of the U.S. government—alongside the legislative and the judicial branches—and is responsible for carrying out and executing the nation’s laws. The president of the United States is the chief of the executive branch, which also ...read more
The ACLU, or American Civil Liberties Union, is a nonprofit legal organization whose goal is to protect the constitutional rights of Americans through litigation and lobbying. Founded in 1920, their stated mission is “to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties ...read more
The United States may have one of the largest armies on earth, but even the Pentagon has taken no chances at being caught off-guard by an unusual foe. In fact, in 2011, the U.S. Department of Defense released a strategy to combat a potential zombie apocalypse. While the potential ...read more
The FBI, or Federal Bureau of Investigation, is the investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Justice and the nation’s primary investigative and domestic intelligence agency. First established in 1908, the FBI has often been criticized for violating the civil rights of ...read more
